Composite leaf springs such as the fiberglass Liteflex.RTM. springs manufactured by the Inland Division of General Motors Corporation offer both mass and space savings over conventional coil and metal leaf spring designs used in vehicle suspension systems. One particularly attractive design is to employ a transverse composite leaf spring that serves as a suspension control arm as well as a spring. In providing for such usage, there are various criteria that need to be considered. For example, the attachment device for such a transversely arranged leaf spring needs to prevent excessive lateral translation of the spring at the attachment point to the cross frame. Furthermore, it is desirable that the composite leaf spring be supported so as to allow it to pivot with minimum local stresses in the spring. It is also desirable that the suspension loads be isolated from the composite spring to the vehicle structure. In addition, the spring should remain durable over its expected life and provide consistent predictable function that is insensitive to environment changes such as temperature, mud, humidity, salt and so forth.
In the attachment devices to date, there is generally employed thick rubber isolators bonded to the opposite sides of the composite spring with a C-clamp retainer then compressing the isolator sandwiched spring and bolting same to the frame. While such devices have proven generally satisfactory, it has been found that the bonded rubber isolators and compressive load can restrict the pivot action of the leaf spring through the attachment thereby adding local stresses to the spring. Furthermore, the isolation of the suspension loads from the vehicle structure is dependent on the compressive force and properties of the isolators in the C-clamp retainer. Moreover, translation of the composite spring is dependent on the compressive force and the material bonding the rubber isolators to the spring surface. As a result, deterioration of the bonding material because of changing environment or pivot motion of the spring through the assembly can allow unwanted lateral translation of the spring.